


50% American Day

by Siria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-29
Updated: 2008-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-09 02:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's slumped on the living room sofa. A snoring Merrie, nestled up against his side, is slowly putting his left arm to sleep, but he's got a beer in his right hand and the Cubs game on his TV screen, so John's kind of philosophical about the whole thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	50% American Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sheafrotherdon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/gifts).



> Written for Sheafrotherdon, to celebrate her being officially almost-American! Set in her Iowa 'verse, with her permission.

John's slumped on the living room sofa. A snoring Merrie, nestled up against his side, is slowly putting his left arm to sleep, but he's got a beer in his right hand and the Cubs game on his TV screen, so John's kind of philosophical about the whole thing. Halfway through the third inning, just when he's having to restrain himself from shouting at the screen, lest he have to face the wrath of a Merrie who's not gotten her full nap, Rodney gets home. John can hear the rustle of paper bags coming from the kitchen—he hopes this means Rodney got take out; John refuses to cook on a Cubs Day—and the opening of the pantry door before Rodney barrels into the room at his usual pace.

He deposits three things in quick succession—more Chinese food than they can possibly hope to eat on the coffee table; a kiss on Merrie's temple; an envelope in John's lap—before sitting cross-legged on the floor and opening a carton that smells strongly of General Tso's chicken. Rodney's wearing an expression of schoolboy innocence, which alone is enough to make John automatically suspicious, and he squints down at the envelope.

"Another restraining order?"

Rodney rolls his eyes. "Oh, ye of little faith. Just... open it, okay?" There's a faint flush to his face, which makes John recalculate: not lethal, less likely to be legal, but with a definite possibility for embarrassment.

"Okay," John drawls, and carefully eases Merrie down so that she's stretched out on the sofa before he picks up the envelope. He makes a show of looking at it front and back, as if there are clues to its contents to be gleaned from its nondescript lines, until Rodney breaks and snaps, "Just get _on_ with it, Jesus."

John slits it open with his thumb and upends it: a pamphlet, and a small laminated card. He looks at the pamphlet first, then cocks an eyebrow at Rodney. "'Welcome to America'? I hate to break it to you buddy, but I've kind of been here a _while_, and—"

"Not _that_," Rodney huffs, "_that_!" He waves his hand in a kind of indeterminate fashion at John's crotch, but John takes it to mean that he wants John to look at the card, rather than that Rodney wants to jump his bones in front of their infant daughter. John picks it up and flips it over, and feels both his eyebrows rise to meet his hairline. "Permanent resident?" he says slowly, before looking back up at Rodney.

"I just figured," Rodney says, not quite meeting John's eyes, and speaking even faster than is usual when he's agitated (interesting; John hadn't known that was possible), "given that Finn's half-American and you're _all_ American and Merrie was, you know, implanted by some of Iowa's finest and since this place isn't _entirely_ bad, even given your people's tendencies to vote for imbeciles and favour football over hockey and show a shocking disregard for the letter 'U' in your spelling, I thought I might. You know. Make sure I can stick around. So I applied."

"Rodney," John says, rubbing his thumb over the ID card's smooth laminated surface—he hadn't picked up on so much as a hint of Rodney planning on this, and he's pretty sure these things take a while—that they take time and effort, that they mean you want to _be here_. There's a familiar sweet ache in his chest that has nothing to do with the Cubs getting their ass whooped on TV—it's the one John knows from the day Rodney'd brought home the papers that meant that the world would know Finn was his kid, too; the one he'd first known the day Rodney came back to him with open, seeking palms.

"Now, make no mistake," Rodney says around a mouthful of chicken, "I'm going to keep my Canadian citizenship too, because otherwise I'd lose, oh, a good ten per cent of my innate superiority over most of the great unwashed, and I reserve the right to mock you for your president and your vice president and oh, pretty much every member of your congress, but I think. You know. I'm getting a pretty good deal, so if we can pre-empt the—"

"Rodney," John says, then gives it up for a lost cause—no point speaking here—and launches himself off the couch, gives Rodney just enough time for his eyes to widen before John lands on top of them and they're rolling around on the carpet—Rodney laughing, astonished; John kissing his mouth and his eyebrows and his still-flushed cheeks, and loving how Rodney unthinkingly, unstintingly, kisses him back. Two pairs of flailing legs send the coffee table flying, John's celebratory opening bars of _Star Spangled Banner_ rivalled in volume by Rodney's rendition of _O Canada_, and if Merrie raises her infant voice in howling protest, who can blame her? Her fathers are clearly absolutely (fond, twitterpated) nuts.


End file.
